for all of ya'll stalker folks

last Friday after work I came home, packed my bags, and refreshed the traffic report on Google Maps until the red lines went away (around 7pm). then I hit the road towards the cascades. after about 25 miles off Mountain Loop Highway there was a little dirt road descriptively named NF-4060. I drove on that for a few miles that took me along the side of a mountain, crossing streams and dodging rocks, up and up, occasionally revealing some views of the sunset over the valley below

at the top of the mountain next to a lake were two married couples and one soon to be married couple. but I was not to be the seventh wheel, for there was a baby and a puppy there too. I guess that makes me the ninth wheel. here’s what the puppy looked like in the morning

we made breakfast

derrick and ainslie are chicken parents, so naturally they brought chicken eggs

warming the tortilla on the patented Tortilla Warming Rack

coal lake

ben starts his morning with lime and corona

he had a special backpack for the baby

ben decided we should try to summit a nearby peak, so that’s what we set out to do. there was a short trail to independence lake, but we would journey on past that, if we could.

on the trail ainslie found some ‘witches jelly’, which is apparently edible. I found their texture to be similar to gummy bears, but less tasty, so not entirely appropriate to use as a chaser after a vodka yolo shot

only to get covered up later by more snow fields. I would have felt a lot better about crossing the snow fields with an ice axe which, in retrospect, we should have had

laura also didn’t like crossing the snow fields. many of them extended pretty far down and if we lost our footing without an ice axe we would have slid into rocks, trees, or off a cliff

but instead of ice axes all we had was a hammer for the baby to play with

upwards we climbed

however we eventually reached a snow field with running water under it. the running water had carved out a small cavern underneath the snow. we couldn’t determine how deep the cavern was, and even if it collapsed only a few feet we probably would have lost our footing and started sliding down the snow field…

so we hemmed and hawed and made lunch. avocado, cheese and tuna sandwiches for us!

rocks for the baby

the trick to enjoying any hike is to pack lots of peanut butter cups

ben finished laura’s beer

and we journeyed back down

a photo of yours truly before we left the snow line

and I couldn’t resist making a little snowman

back at camp we spotted derrick on the other side of the lake enjoying the sun

enhance!

enhance!

enhance! oh! he is enjoying some vodka juice

ainslie joined us

ben too, and he and derrick pointed at things across the lake

I put some beers in the freezing water to cool

derick’s crazy vodka juice kicked in

then he tried to tie elaborate fishing knots

and do some drunk fishing

meanwhile dinner was made

which was fantastic

and then the following morning I drove home, which offered some pretty views

If you’re curious about our hike, here’s what that looked like

and the elevation profile

maybe we’ll summit one of the peaks another day when there isn’t a baby following us

I am a critically-acclaimed philosopher, known throughout the world thanks to my theories of creation.

if you would like to email me, you may do that. the correct address to reach me at is stephen [at] softporcupine [dot] com. the reason why I didn't put in the "at sign" and a "period" is to trick the robots.

also, here is a picture of my cat:

maybe now you're thinking: "oh just another oddball who has a website full of pictures of his cat! hmmph!"